Forty Days of One Night Stands
by Thyme In Her Eyes
Summary: A collection of drabbles and shortfics focused on Hojo, Lucrecia, the Jenova Project, and the twisted relationship binding them together. [Hojo x Lucrecia]
1. Deception

Forty Days of One-Night Stands

by Thyme In Her Eyes

_Author's Note_: I'm in a mood for drabbles these days, so I challenged myself to (eventually) write 50 LucreciaxHojo pieces, because my favourite twisted pairing needed some love. These are all non-sequential, the perspective will change, but mostly they'll focus on the Jenova Project, the characters involved (and are in complete ignorance of events which take place in _Dirge of Cerberus_). Also, I don't own FFVII so no suing, blahdy-blah…

Big thanks to TheMadPuppy for all the great prompts!

-- FORTY DAYS OF ONE-NIGHT STANDS --

**#1 – Deception**

He managed to save a few bits and pieces from Shinra, from their attempt to erase his wife out of existence. Not so he could commemorate or mourn her, but to destroy them personally.

The smell of gas catches in the air, the Bunsen burner makes a small popping sound as the flame lights. It never crosses his mind to question why he went through such painstaking troubles to have these files all to himself. All he knows is he wants to see them burn, see _her _burn. He crumples the papers, more valuable than diamonds to competing researchers, crushing and tearing them in his bony hands before discarding them into a wastepaper basket.

His hand grips a photograph, dips it into the fire and then drops the smouldering mess into the basket and grimly assesses the small-scale destruction. He hisses in pleasure seeing the entire metal basket come to life with fire. A grin starts to form as he sees her name blacken and fall apart.

As he burns the last batch of her files and photos, watching the flames quietly eat her research and the image of her face, he knows that this business is finished forever. Jenova and her legacy will endure, but the disgusting need that defined his relationship with his wife is over. His weaknesses were all deceptions. He need never think of her again.

This was an act of purging, not of mourning.

There are no demons. Just rogue DNA chains.


	2. Throw

_Author's Note: _Okay, so it's more shortfic than drabble this time. I also invented a first name for Professor Gast. So sue me. :P

-- FORTY DAYS OF ONE-NIGHT STANDS --

**#2 – Throw**

It had all happened during a routine analysis of cell samples. It was looking to be a long and late night, and Professor William Gast saw no reason why it had to be a quiet night on top of all that.

After working with Lucrecia for so long, who was happy to fill the stretched-out nights with lively discussions on a variety of different topics, Gast found Hojo – sullen, obsessive, self-possessed Hojo – to be (generously put) a frustrating substitute. Even after weeks together working on the most compelling scientific endeavour known to history, Hojo still wasn't even trying to get along with anyone. Unless angry or offended, he only spoke when spoken to and obviously kept all his real thoughts to himself. Most of the time, Gast figured it made him quite an interesting fellow, but tonight all that depth and mystery and fascination was just nerve-gratingly annoying. Thank heavens that Lucrecia was much more on the level, or the whole Project would start to look like a nightmare in the making.

So Gast endeavoured for the hundredth time to try and coax his young assistant into a conversation. Try to get the boy to open up a bit, talk to him like a friend. It seemed to the older scientist that if anyone really needed a friend in life, it was Dr. Hojo. The young man was in definite need of someone to talk to. Someone to have a laugh with about something. _Definitely_ a girlfriend – no, that was thinking too far ahead. _One step at a time, Will._

It was sad and frustrating to watch. The young man never socialised, had no conversational skills and didn't seem bothered to learn any, didn't appear to like anyone and so had never been liked; he just cooped himself in his room or lab with his books and notes as if nothing was wrong with being like that. It showed on his looks too – he was pale, thin and unwashed, always shrunken and hunched over books or lab work. He was decent-looking under all that at the moment, but he'd grow to be crooked, skinny and ugly if he carried on that way, and Gast hated to think of that. There was still time to nip this attitude in the bud. True, Gast hadn't had any luck so far in getting the boy to relax and come out of his shell, but he was the sort of man who could always remain optimistic even with a million reasons not to.

Sure, Hojo was rude as hell, but wasn't that how society was raising them to be these days? He couldn't be nothing more than a jerk; just mixed-up. After all, Gast was something of a mixed-up geek himself, he reflected wistfully. And he'd known enough socially dysfunctional young geniuses in his time to be familiar with their quirks and grating asocial tendencies. In his eyes, Hojo was just a brilliant but strange kid who'd missed out on all the fun he was supposed to have had in his adolescence and who wouldn't stop pushing himself so damn hard because he was still young and naïve enough to be under the delusion that work was everything in life.

But under the sunken, deep-set eyes and tendrils of greasy black hair that always hung limply over his face, there was a weird sense of humour lurking, Gast knew. That was always a good start.

Now somehow, the conversation Gast was having – mostly with himself, by the looks of it – steered towards Lucrecia and that was when things got interesting.

He'd given up talking about hobbies, politics, sports, movies, religion, books and music, and decided to chat about science and the Project instead, to try and encourage some meaningful interaction. So he brought Lu into the mix, mentioning her recent findings, and weren't they interesting, didn't this shed a lot of light on things, wasn't Dr. Crescent seriously onto something, what did he make of it all…?

Miraculously, somewhere between the usual brick wall and the occasional sarcastic scathing, Gast heard the murmured remark, _"You're right. It's good work. I admire her research capabilities – she has an excellent mind."_

Without even trying this time, Hojo had shut his superior up. Left him gobsmacked, in fact. Seriously thrown for a loop. Blinking at Hojo for a second or two, the right lens had suddenly clicked into place, and Gast saw clearly the complex thing under his scrutiny. He knew the young doctor well enough to understand that although he was the type never shy about lying when he had to, he never humoured anyone. That comment had to have been made before Hojo had even thought it through. Gast was shocked, but it lightened his heart to have learned what he had.

"…" Questioningly, Hojo looked up from his work, noticing the sudden and unexpected silence but evidently unaware of how much of himself he'd given away. "You were saying…?"

"No…no, if you don't mind, I'll leave it till next time, hmm? I guess I'm out of steam at last." Gast said with a forced chuckle and pretended to concentrate with inspired intensity on the samples under his microscope.

Hojo simply shrugged, lost all semblance of interest, and turned back to his own studies and observations with renewed fervour.

Every now and then, Gast would look up from his quiet work and study the man opposite him. He was still shaken, and couldn't help staring in choked, stupefied disbelief and a little bit of almost-happy fascinated wonder.

In that once-in-a-lifetime moment of unguardedness, William Gast had realised to his astonishment that behind that change in the young doctor's tone of voice, in his rare praise, in that throwaway comment, was the impossible and the unthinkable and the unbelievable – Hojo in love.


	3. Humming

-- FORTY DAYS OF ONE-NIGHT STANDS --

**#3 – Humming**

Lucrecia wasn't a cheerful woman, or even a very happy woman deep down, but she liked to hum as she worked; one of many characteristic habits she stubbornly refused to let go of. There was a heavy but formless kind of sadness that constantly hung over and around her like an odour, and so she liked to fill her environment with music. Classic songs her grandmother used to love playing on her old victrola; the happy tunes of her early childhood, which never failed to give her spirits a lift.

Sifting through notes, documenting her findings, examining various samples, she'd unconsciously start to hum tunelessly; hearing the pitch and rhythm perfectly in her mind, but without the talent to correctly vocalise any of it. She loved music almost as much as she loved science and discovery, and felt the notes of her favourite song play on her DNA strands and the chords reverberate in her all the way down to her cellular structure. But unlike in the scientific field, when it came to music she was completely and utterly without skill – but Professor Gast had never minded, and Vincent Valentine had never believed it.

Back when Hojo thought he hated her, her habit of humming was something he found particularly infuriating. It used to set his teeth on edge; the way she'd so often hum off-key whilst working – she'd be moving around the lab, working the beakers, and all of a sudden start that sickly sweet noise and his fingers would itch to strangle her sometimes. He never thought about why exactly it was when she was in his company that Lucrecia would hum the most often.

Not being the soul of discretion, Hojo never thought twice about venting his irritation at the girl and not-so-nicely asking her for some peace and quiet to concentrate. And although his snipes and jibes never really fazed her, Lucrecia would always oblige him and apologise, but Hojo wouldn't let go of his resentment and foul mood, and his fingers would still occasionally twitch as he watched her continuing her work in silence.

But once she left the room, perhaps for only a short break, to attend a task elsewhere, or to retire for the night, politely saying goodbye and taking all the chances of hearing off-key music away with her, and Hojo was left alone in the lab with only the faint electrical humming of their equipment for company; he reluctantly began to think that maybe she wasn't so bad.


	4. Scent

-- FORTY DAYS OF ONE-NIGHT STANDS --

**#4 – Scent**

They met and romanced surrounded by the choking chemical smell which forever hovered around and through the lab; like a spider's web wrapping around its prey and sticking to them fast. The source of the smell was Jenova, but only Hojo made the metaphoric connection.

After his late nights (or early mornings), when he'd come back to his wife and see loneliness and self-pity in her eyes – his particular enemies, the damned feelings that made her sometimes doubt the Project and respond to Valentine's charming fairytales – he would know who she'd been talking to. He'd calmly sit next to her, stroke her hair, touch her face and feign tenderness in general and then kiss her hard and punishingly, feeling her come alive in his arms as he sniffed frantically at her, possessively breathing in her distinctive personal smell as if he owned it and was greedy to indulge in it. What he was looking for was the scent of adultery.

Later, when Lucrecia would wake up alone and know that her husband had gone back to the lab, her face would fall and the blue and disappointed part of her heart would grow and expand a little bit more. He stank of the lab, of unchanged clothes, of an unwashed body, stank of Jenova and blood and Mako and his obsession – and the scent of adultery had never been stronger.


	5. Betrayal

-- FORTY DAYS OF ONE-NIGHT STANDS --

**#5 – Betrayal**

Maybe the reason it all ended in betrayal on all sides was because it hadn't started very far from that.

Lucrecia had known Professor Gast for years, loved him as a friend and a father, respected and admired him deeply as a scientist, but in the end her drive for science – the drive he had helped ignite in her – won out over loyalty. In the end, she and Hojo understood the value of Jenova and the implications of its power and knowledge better than he ever could. Gast had betrayed them by trying to apply the breaks, trying to halt the Project's progress and protesting with increasing outrage against human experimentation. There had been enough already and he was not going to drag some poor baby into the ethical dumping-ground that he'd helped create – those had been his words. And so he tightened his control over his assistants, made the Project's limits very clear, asserting the authority given to him by Shinra. He didn't understand how necessary it was, that foetal exposure was the _only_ way to achieve their goals. But he had said that it didn't matter, and for the first time Lucrecia had irrationally hated him as much as Hojo did for holding them back, for his short-sightedness and especially for his sanctimonious ways.

But Lucrecia and Hojo knew better than Gast, better understood how to play the game. The accidental pregnancy sometime later turned out to be a miracle they quickly took advantage of. Naturally, it was far from procedure to use one of their own for the experiment, but it was the only way – Gast would never tolerate trying to win the consent of some other expecting woman. Lucrecia, despite knowing how hard it would be on her, was no-one's victim and had shivered in excitement knowing that it would be her before all other women.

It was simple mathematics, really. A calculated risk for an extraordinary payoff. They had the baby, had the mother, and had all the means to take the Project to the next level – the level it _needed_ to be taken to. And so like naughty schoolchildren playing a prank on a pathetic substitute teacher, they had gone over Gast's head, submitted their proposal directly to the President himself, and weren't at all surprised when they immediately received full approval, additional funding and the knowledge that they had been _noticed_ at long last and that their dedication would be rewarded. Shinra took away Gast's precious authority, castrated him of his sense of moral control, and sternly reprimanded him for holding back from taking this crucial next step. Professor Gast had been devastated by the Project's development and even more so by the personal betrayal of his colleagues, people he'd thought of as friends.

The Judas pair were already married, already accidentally expecting their first child but this was their first real collaboration. They were driven, excited, infuriated, wild, ecstatic and obsessed. It was their moment of greatest passion. Their minds had never been so attuned, their opinions never so much in perfect agreement. Husband and wife were in complete union, their ideas echoing and strengthening each other, driving the pair forwards. Thoughts pulsed between them; ideas sparked from one brain to the other and back again. The experience of betrayal – of _righteous _betrayal – was thrilling to both of them. They conspired together, plotted and won and the treachery and its excitement bound them together far closer than love, marriage and parenthood ever had. They would never be happier together.


	6. Lightning

-- FORTY DAYS OF ONE-NIGHT STANDS --

**#6 – Lightning**

Afterwards, Lucrecia wouldn't be able to fully remember or understand exactly how it had happened. Just that it had. She had kissed Hojo.

There was no thunderbolt, no metaphoric flash of lightning when their lips first touched. It had been a quiet, drawn-out, almost awkward moment. Certainly a strange one. They had been working together all night and Lucrecia had sat down in a sudden brainstorming session, battling exhaustion, and her face was painted almost as green as her eyes as the glow of Jenova's tank illuminated her. Hojo had shifted towards her and simply told her, his tone of voice more curious than anything else, that he would like permission to kiss her. Maybe it was the tiredness talking when she responded, or the loneliness, but it had seemed like a perfectly reasonable request and she'd liked how he'd phrased it, so she didn't protest.

The brilliant had its allure, like the men she'd seen in Midgar wearing ostentatious furs, fashion items, gold and diamonds to attract their women; and it was Hojo's mind, the almost-creepy fascinations and obsessions she'd witnessed glimmering there and had ached to understand and make sense of, that was so brilliant and drew her in. The man who hated everyone wanted _her_ and she couldn't pull away or do anything except sink and let it happen. He wasn't glittering and brilliant like diamonds, the way Vincent always drew her eye. No, Hojo was a smooth black stone. He had no clean reflective surface that displayed his brilliance: instead, he swallowed up all the light around him, and Lucrecia had to know what would happen to her if she got too close. He was deep and dark and murky and set off warning-alarms in her head but she wanted to sift through his depths – forever searching, but not quite sure what it was she was looking for.

As he drew her closer, feverish now, her mind couldn't fully process what she was doing and couldn't comprehend how this man who was cold, spiteful, aloof and repulsive was making out with her, or how she could be enjoyingit. But there was nothing magical, nothing celluloid in it as the flesh of their mouths touched and she felt the pressure of him as his kiss metamorphosed from hesitant and unsure to ardent and urgent. As his thin arms wound round her like choking vines, crushing them together and making her respond, Lucrecia felt something outside of nature, outside of safe, natural elements like clichéd lightning-bolts strike her and take hold of her. She was pressed tightly against a gaping wet cavern of hot, needy flesh, aching with greedy desire and manic, panting want for her, and it pulled her in and poisoned her without remorse.

Being struck by lightning would have been easier. Ten thousand volts of burning electrical currents were safer than Hojo at that moment.


	7. Answer

_Author's Note: _Sorry for the absence, and hopefully the updates may come a little quicker over the Christmas holidays. Again, it's a bit long, but oh well… Enjoy!

-- FORTY DAYS OF ONE-NIGHT STANDS --

**#7 – Answer**

When Hojo proposed to her, Lucrecia was thinking about want. Not about what _she_ wanted, but about what Hojo wanted. Because she wanted all sorts of normal, average and everyday things, and her desires, even secret ones, were nothing shocking. But Hojo was different – his passions and desires were submerged and indecipherable and otherworldly. Him wanting something normal was stunning. Just as stunning was fully realising that he wanted _her_,and not just for a little while, but for a long while, a very long while.

And after thinking about that, she began to reflect on what it was to be truly wanted. Hojo wasn't like Vincent: unlike her beautiful, sorrowful Turk, he didn't _need _her as if she was the air to him. She wasn't necessary and comfortable and an expected part of life like breathable air; not to Hojo anyway. No, Hojo could do just fine without her, of that Lucrecia had no doubt, but he _wanted_ her all the same. He didn't want her to feel like he could survive or that life was worth living or some rubbish like that, but because he coveted her (and he was plenty honest about that, he never prettied-up cold, hard facts as anything more than what they were). He sought her out greedily and jealously because he wanted to have her. It wasn't a compulsion, it was a desire. A genuine and honest and surprised desire. And she had stirred it in him, and knew that he hated her for it half the time.

Forever the scientist, Lucrecia keenly observed that stirred desire, quietly documenting how it twitched and responded to all kinds of positive and negative stimuli. It fascinated her. So did he, as she watched him twitch and respond, and saw how he orchestrated things and masochistically _made _her catch him out wanting her so badly.

Anyone who knew about Lucrecia and her relationship to Hojo, the Project, and to Sephiroth (they were few and silent, their limited number constantly shrinking) assumed that the proposal had been straightforward – that he had asked and that she had answered. It was easy to think of Hojo as the pursuer, cornering his fair quarry with cruel, tricky confrontations and questions, slicing away at her options and forcing an answer out of her. It was just as easy to think of Lucrecia as the one faced with a terrible and dark choice, being blinded by blackmail and seeing no way out. That was how the few who remembered the pair and their incomprehensible romance liked to imagine things.

The brief conversation had actually gone quite differently to that unhappy fantasy.

Lucrecia had been the first to speak, to question. "What do you want, Hojo? What do you really want?"

He had thought for a long moment, slicing away at his options with a stubborn and quiet madness sharper than any scalpel; pushing himself towards a conclusive answer.

Finally, after wading through possibilities, Hojo found it. "I want you to be my wife."

Lucrecia looked at him and held his gaze firmly, thinking about what he wanted, overwhelmed by the force of it. She could easily take risks for that. When her thoughts flickered over what _she_ wanted; she realised that it was to be able to keep responding; to be wanted, desired and coveted like this, like no-one ever had before or ever would again, and she very easily found the answer to the question he'd never asked.

"_Yes."_


	8. Tease

_Author's Note: _Okay, so I'm back just a tiny bit later than I predicted, but I haven't forgotten this project! Sorry for the wait! I just wanted to thank everyone who's reviewed so far and encouraged me to continue – you're just as responsible for keeping this collection alive as I am, so thank you! Anyway, I own neither the characters or franchise and am still pretending that _Dirge of Cerberus_ doesn't exist...

-- FORTY DAYS OF ONE-NIGHT STANDS --

**#8 – Tease**

More often than Hojo liked, the silver of his son's hair brought back the sensory memory of how the cold surface of the silver face designed for Jenova teased his fingertips. He recalled running slow hands over that hollow mask, digits starved for answers. He recalled empty eye sockets making no promises. It was up to him to do the rest, he understood, but when the small boy's hair was under a certain light and brought to mind the feel of smooth steel and the memory of a time when he hungered for more than knowledge, Hojo had to fight the urge to reach out to the boy, to touch him, to offer some gesture of affection or appreciation. It annoyed and repulsed him.

As a child, Sephiroth had much of his mother's face; calm, distant, intelligent and perpetually disappointed, but those features had no power over him now. There was only the great work. He would never allow himself to think of how the steel visage of Jenova was as cold as _her_ face had been the last time he'd touched it. He would not think of what his fingers had felt when drifting down that face or what his skin had wanted, and his mind had yearned for. He could only silently approve of the increasing cold edge to the boy's voice as he less and less frequently asked his pointless sentimental questions about the mother he never knew. Some lessons were better learned in youth, and loss and mystery were promising places to start, and would teach the child much. They would give him what a loving mother never could.

Hojo was no stranger to the world. Cause and effect was so often conceived as the cruel fancy of life or some old deity, but he knew enough to understand that Lucrecia's death was no tragedy. After all, parents died every day for the sake of their children.

But observing Sephiroth reading and writing beyond his age-level and displaying massive feats of strength, endurance, scientific comprehension, magical talent and strategic understanding at such a tender age confirmed one thing and welded it within the scientist's mind. In that mess of molten thought, what raised Lucrecia above so many and proved her superior to every struggling, suffering and loving parent Hojo's memory and imagination could conjure up, and what never failed to tease a twitching smile from him, was knowing that everyone else's children were worthless, every last one of them, but Sephiroth would always be different.


	9. Sleep

-- FORTY DAYS OF ONE-NIGHT STANDS --

**#9 – Sleep**

This was not supposed to happen. This should not be happening. Hojo rants, denies and refuses, but cold factual reality still defied him.

There was no further point to watching over Sephiroth – the baby was sound asleep and there were no more observations to note. The infant slept the sleep of the strong and healthy whilst his mother faded away a few doors down, bedridden and terrified of closing her eyes. The father needed rest too, and the grey caverns under his eyes and the evolution of his face's fine lines into ravines told everyone around him this.

Hojo was done compiling his report on the baby, was sick of pacing up and down the spare room while a doctor saw to his wife and collaborator, and wary of the unfamiliar bed, decided to sit at the desk provided and rummage through old notes and calculations, scouring them for the answer, hands hot and breath ragged, eyes wild and livid at this unacceptable turn of events. His genius had already created so much; it was a slap in the face to see it wither and crumble already. It was an insult. The Project was supposed to be a complete success. Sephiroth was alive and healthy and that was the important detail which made his triumph much more than partial, but the mother's fate was still unexpected. It was not supposed to happen. It was a mistake, someone else's blunder.

Lucrecia was dying, but he had already estimated for that risk. An adverse reaction to Jenova cells and Mako-infused injections was to be expected, a rough birth was prepared for, but he had foreseen all possible outcomes and had compensated for every possible reaction. He had calculated that she would not die. He scribbled frantically, the sweat on his hands making his grip on the pencil slip and slide, aggravation tearing through him. He wrote desperately, creasing the paper with his movements, pressing down hard enough to make impressions in the wood. His eyes were rabid, enraged at his results. Over and over again, the same conclusion. All eventualities compensated for. All calculations predicted, bar human error, that the human subject ought to survive the infusing and birthing process. No risk. He could not have miscalculated. She should be recovering. The cells should have given her strength.

He drew in a shuddering breath, stood up, and carried his chair with him, taking it from the desk and placing it in the center of the room. He sat down on it, hands gripping at the material covering his knees, staring with tired eyes at the door.

Eventually, in the quiet hours, a timid knock came.

"What is it?" Hojo asked flatly.

The door opened by a fraction, showing the pinched and pale face of Lucrecia's doctor, the worried face of a man searching for the right thing to say. "I...I'm very sorry. I'm afraid your wife passed away a few minutes ago."

"Thank you," Hojo said with a dismissing nod, his expression and tone of voice unchanging. Blank, calm, easy acceptance.

Awkward with confusion, his expectations befuddled by the scientist's unusual reaction, the doctor made a few small, stupid noises in his throat before looking away and retreating, the terrible sense of energy and manic, forced stillness that came pouring from that room too much to bear.

Hojo rose and locked his door himself. He returned to the desk and reorganized his material. There was no purpose to reassessing his estimations now. He refused to acknowledge that his hands were still shaking and that his fingertips were raw. Instead, he began to pen a new schedule for the following day. There would be more time to run tests on the child, at least. He would have much less on his mind, much less to distract him from a wealth of new experiments to conduct, a world of opportunity and fascination which the cells of Jenova could help him reach.

Climbing into bed, still sweating and fully-dressed, Hojo decided that it was better to mourn Lucrecia as he had in that moment. Bitterness could be swallowed down, digested, and purged. There was no loss. He would not acknowledge defeat. He had not been defeated by his need to take the Project further, he had lost nothing - nothing that could not be recovered or replaced by the incredible knowledge he was on the verge of gaining. His eyes were heavy with exhaustion. Reaching out, he dimmed the lamp. Science could offer such remarkable consolation.

Thinking that, he slept well.


	10. Famished

-- FORTY DAYS OF ONE-NIGHT STANDS --

**#10 – Famished**

"I...I don't believe this. I used to be a vegetarian."

Lucrecia told him this, more wonder in her voice than revulsion or panic. But that was always her nature. She rarely backed away and was always more keen to jot down notes and observations than worry for herself. She was often judged foolhardy, and to some extent Hojo could concede to the truth of that estimation, but privately he believed that out of all the morons, bootlickers and pretenders out there, his wife was one of the few who had enough daring and vision to be considered a real scientist.

Her pregnancy-cravings fascinated him, bringing to mind the sight of Jenova-infected creatures, the ferocity of those primary experiments, and how they would tear at the animal meat offered them in their clear cages. Like them, Lucrecia ate as though she were starving. Being changed by such degrees was a testament to the power of her union with Jenova and the consummation of that scientific relationship. As hunger overwhelmed her and the smell and taste of steak tainted the air of the ground-level floors of the Shinra mansion, Hojo could not feel fear or concern. Let Gast and Valentine bandy and whine about how changed their precious girl was. Around this stage she was already beginning to lose bits and pieces of her beauty as the Mako and Jenova cells did their work and the scent of the lab and dead flesh began to cling to her, but to Hojo she had never been more beautiful. Grasping her was never so pleasurable as when he could taste the meat in her mouth and could feel her swelling stomach pressed against him. Truth was, she was _his_ and each time her teeth ripped into flesh only confirmed her increasing perfection. He often envied her and slobbered over the prospect of one day achieving a similar union with Jenova, but for now he could live vicariously through Lucrecia and their son, and learn.

Beyond his frustration, Hojo always found it interesting to note in the years that followed that although Sephiroth appeared most at ease when wielding magic against others and spilling blood, ever since the boy had learned to form coherent sentences he had blankly and fiercely refused meat of all kinds.


	11. Press

_Author's Note: _This chapter caused me to up the rating a notch because it contains some strong allusions to sex and a bit of a disturbing train of thought. It's nothing too graphic, but if it's not your cup of tea... Anyway, just a friendly warning. Happy reading!

-- FORTY DAYS OF ONE-NIGHT STANDS --

**#11 – Press**

They all think he is disgusting. Whenever Gast, Valentine, or some random moronic town resident sees him trying to court her, they all think of a slug crawling over a rose. He can see it in their eyes. He can practically smell it on them. She is supposed to affirm his greatness and help him prove to all concerned that he is not to be pitied or ridiculed, not with a beauty like _that _on his arm. Instead, when Lucrecia is at his side, people twist their faces, wonder what she sees and display nothing but utter confusion about how such a lovely girl could ever lower herself like that.

After enough time spent watching her associate with the Turk when she has better things to do and seeing her smile at the man's practiced charm and pretty face, ignoring the blood on his hands and the filth in his mind, he begins to agree with everyone and his entire outlook starts to shift. Hojo festers with it, and becomes sourer than ever. He sees such beauty in her, and wants to defile it and bring so many rotten mistakes down on her head. Shuddering at the very thought of it, he wants to pollute her.

The second time they ever kiss is at the Nibelheim gates, after she agrees to marry him. It was never luck that pushed her to him, and so he refuses to rejoice in her decision. It was inevitable – he was always the better suitor, even if he was the only one who could see it. Lucrecia coming to him isn't good fortune, but merely the world revolving as it should, and he accepts it as nothing less than his dues. Despite everything, he still wins, but it isn't enough. It's never enough.

The kiss is just a simple motion – just one mouth pressed against another. Potentially pleasurable, yes, he is willing to admit that much, but nonetheless a meaningless physical action anyone could be capable of, and not the thing for individuals so above the mob as he and she so clearly are.

But Hojo begins to understand how such a thing could ever be so aggrandized by a venal society as his own arousal both numbs and inflames him. He _wants_ her – not just for the bitter and gloating glory of it, but to have _her_. He wants to grab her face in his hands, yank her flush against him, kiss her blind, tongue her flesh, grind his body into hers and sink his nails into her skin. He wants to draw blood, taste her and lick her clean, never stopping. He wants to press his imprint deep and permanent into her pliant body, leave a mark never to be erased, a stain that will never wash out. Kissing her harder and rabidly exploring her, he _has _to crash on top of her, rip off her clothes, nip at her softness, fuck her numb, consume her, drain her, and he needs to make her savage and cruel and passionate. He needs to absorb her, consume her, combine their essences and weave the strands of her genetic makeup around his own.

Withdrawing and pulling away, Hojo basks momentarily in the glow of his victory and the overwhelming fire of his greed. As they walk together in silent understanding, he notices a figure in the corner of his eyes and realizes that they were watched. Unconsciously, his arm tightens around Lucrecia's shoulder and presses her closer to him, irrational jealousy beginning to rise as he recognizes that, more than anything else, he wants to keep her.

Hojo partly hates her for reducing him so much, and quietly burns to press her down and pin her like a twitching and chloroform-drugged butterfly at the first opportunity.


End file.
